


Awkward Encounters of the Bakery Kind

by PresquePommes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1402420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresquePommes/pseuds/PresquePommes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Treating himself with freshly baked goods on the odd and typically shitty day he finds himself walking home from the bank seems like a fair arrangement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awkward Encounters of the Bakery Kind

**Author's Note:**

> I had a weird bakery encounter earlier. This is pretty much that exact encounter, actually.

He only ever really goes to this bakery when he’s coming back from the bank.

It’s a little too out of his way to conveniently frequent if he’s going or coming from anywhere else- a block up from his grocery store and in exactly the opposite direction from his work. He doesn’t usually drive, but even if he did, there’s no parking.

And he can usually do what he needs to at a bank machine- it’s a rare occasion that brings him to the teller.

He’s just never made it in often enough to recognize or be recognized by the staff, and he’s okay with that.

Treating himself with freshly baked goods on the odd and typically shitty day he finds himself walking home from the bank seems like a fair arrangement.

This is why, when he pushes open the door, pausing to read the handwritten sign on it about the few days it’ll be closing happening later in the month- nothing to do with him, given his irregular visits- he isn’t surprised that he doesn’t recognize the boy behind the counter.

His first impression is that the kid is irritatingly tall.

His second is that the kid is _young_ and irritatingly tall.

His broad shoulders say mid to late twenties, but his shaggy hair and poorly disguised interest say nineteen or twenty, give or take a year or two in either direction.

He could be young or he could just be tactless. Shit, he could be both. Definitely one or the other, at least.

Levi relaxes a little when the kid stops glancing at him, distracted by some pretty young thing with a question he doesn’t care enough to listen to. He wanders along the glass front of the display, hands tucked in his pockets, and remembers the other reason why he never comes in here: he never knows what he actually _wants_ , only what he absolutely _doesn’t_.

Most of it looks decadent at a glance, but it also looks unfamiliar, and he’s a creature of stubborn habit.

He now remembers what his routine here is and is resigned to fulfilling it again- he will come in, meander useless for five minutes while staring intensely at everything like he hasn’t already made up his mind, and then begrudgingly select the same fucking thing he gets every time he comes in.

There will be an awkward interaction with the clerk- he senses that this one will, inevitably, try to make conversation. He’s got the look.

Levi’s not especially great at making conversation with strangers. He accepted the reality of his own awkwardness a long time ago. He wonders if he can make it through this without saying something peculiar or making the clerk feel bad.

“Have you been in here before?”

He looks up at the clerk in question, eyebrows twitching upwards. “Yeah.” The kid looks expectant. He shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Not for a while, though. I don’t come here often.”

There’s a painful beat of silence in which the kid continues to look at him intently. “Well, do you want me to, um, give you a tour anyway?” he asks abruptly, and all at once Levi is burdened with finding the prospect of this impending social tragedy incredibly amusing.

“Sure,” he answers, shrugging, and the kid grins in a way that is actually kind of irritatingly infectious.

He only seems to get taller, somehow, when he rounds the counter, gesturing vaguely to a table of baked good with a supremely helpful,

“This is all pretty delicious,”

a statement he follows with something about oatmeal cookies that Levi doesn’t hear because he’s too busy murmuring an obliging and slightly bemused _“I’m sure it is.”_

He continues to dutifully fail to listen to anything the clerk is saying as he babbles about the first section of the display case and then the second- something about gluten-free products on the top shelf- tuning in briefly to for the third and being rewarded by a scintillating “I call this the _‘rich people case’_ because everything in it is, y’know, two twenty-five or over,” which he chuckles politely at despite having no goddamn clue if the kid is kidding or not.

The last case is the dairy case, he learns, looking down into the emptiest case of all and puzzling over what dairy has to do with any of the few products within.

He looks up to find the clerk leaning over the top of the display case and grinning at him expectantly again.

He’s saying something about everything being pretty fresh, pointing to a batch of pastries Levi can only dimly identify and telling him that they were made earlier that day. Levi’s starting to peg his age as younger rather than older. He’s still not entirely sure.

The kid’s rambling stutters to a stop when another customer beckons him over to the cash register. Levi watches him hesitate, eyes flickering from his face to the young woman waiting by the counter, and snorts when he mumbles an apology and dashes away.

In the absence left by his brief departure, someone else’s existence abruptly becomes obvious.

There is a much older, much balder man staring at him from behind the display case, and he has literally no idea how long he has been standing there.

They stare at each other for an uncomfortably long period of time before the bald man gruffly inquires after what it is that Levi wants.

He doesn’t get further than “I haven’t decided yet,” before the kid comes back and leans over the counter at him again, folding his arms and leaning on his elbows.

His body language is approximately as subtle as a brick to the face.

 “…Just the croissants,” he admits finally, and the kid strides over to the dairy case- seriously, he does not fucking _get_ that- and pulls out two bags of three croissants.

“Pecan or- wait, shit, almond- almond or cinnamon?”

“Cinnamon,” he responds warily, tacking on a belated “please” at the heavy stare of his older companion.

The kid complies with a smile and then promptly says something that makes no sense to Levi’s ears.

“…Did you just say I should try the ‘cinnamon wriggler’, or-”

“Cinnamon _arugula,_ ” the clerk corrects, which only serves to deepen his confusion.

“Cinnamon arugula,” he repeats disbelievingly. The kid nods. He glances over at the disconcertingly silent bald man beside him. “What, like the vegetable?”

The kid’s face blanks before breaking into a much different kind of smile, the kind that tells Levi he’s started to think he’s a little bit stupid. “If you say so.”

Levi sighs.

So much for making it through this without saying something strange. One down, one to go.

“Rugelach,” the bald man enunciates carefully, and Levi hums with sudden comprehension.

“Cinnamon _rugelach_ ,” he repeats, relieved to find that his budding doubts about the vegetal nature of arugula were unfounded. “Rugelach. Okay, that makes more sense. That, um, doesn’t sound like a vegetable.”

The kid flushes a little. “Oh yeah, the _‘ach’_ , I forgot about that.” He fidgets uncomfortably before repeating _“rugelach”_ more quietly and with visible discomfort.

So much for not making the clerk feel bad. Two down, none to go.

He takes the cinnamon croissants as well as a peculiar-looking pastry he doesn’t catch the name of but doesn’t feel right asking for again and mostly gets out of a feeling of mild guilt, eying it warily as the bald man wraps and bags it.

“Do you want to try it first?” the older, balder clerk asks him, a little less stony than he had been before, and he grunts noncommittally, somewhat eager to have this be over and done with.

“I’m sure it’s delicious.”

The bald man actually cracks a smile. “If you don’t like it, my name is Eren.”

He doesn’t miss the kid’s double take and mortified scowl.

“…I take it you’re Eren, then,” he ventures, amused.

The kid grins sheepishly at him.

The bald man looks knowingly at him.

He pays, takes his things, and pauses just outside the bakery to stare warily down at the mysterious pastry he’s just purchased and mutter,

“What in the hell just happened?”


End file.
